Draft legal opinion details plan to remove Freedom of City of London honour from Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor

Mountbatten-Windsor received the Freedom in 2012 by virtue of patrimony, as the child of Prince Philip.

In April this year, the Corporation revealed that it had sent a letter to Mountbatten-Windsor inviting him to relinquish his Freedom, but that it had not received a reply.

Then in May, the Corporation passed a motion censuring Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor over his failure to relinquish the honour, and instructed officers to pursue steps to lawfully remove it from him.

On Thursday (23 July), the Corporation's political leader and Policy Chairman, Chris Hayward, told the Court of Common Council – the main decision-making assembly of the Corporation – that the City Solicitor had produced a draft law officer's opinion on the issue.

"The provisional gist of the opinion is that the current process for disenfranchisement, which was described in detail in the report before us at the May meeting, is defective and defunct," Hayward said.

He added: "In those circumstances, it is open to the Court, by passing an act of common council, to confer the power of disenfranchisement on itself.

"The law officers are also considering other circumstances by which the freedom could potentially be automatically removed.

"Further work is underway to finalise and issue the law officer's opinion and to produce a draft bill for an act of common council for consideration by the policy and resources committee at its September meeting and thence to this honourable court at our October meeting."

Hayward said that once the court is "empowered to disenfranchise", a further report will be produced in relation to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, which will allow the court to consider and determine the case for his disenfranchisement.

He added: "The City Solicitor and the Remembrancer have both asked me to point out that this is a substantial piece of work with significant constitutional implications which needs to be carefully considered by members to ensure that the new process is as far as possible lawful and workable with no unintended consequences.

"Members must first agree the process for removing the freedom before considering the specific case of Andrew Mountbatten Windsor. To ensure the process is fair, these two matters, I'm advised, must be considered separately."

Adam Carey